NatWest branches open early as balance bug persists

Summary:Around 1,000 NatWest branches opened early on Friday morning, to serve customers affected by a continued glitch in the bank's systems.The fault manifested itself late on Wednesday, stopping customers' balances from updating properly and holding up direct debits.

Around 1,000 NatWest branches opened early on Friday morning, to serve customers affected by a continued glitch in the bank's systems.

The fault manifested itself late on Wednesday, stopping customers' balances from updating properly and holding up direct debits. RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank are all affected by the problem, although they have insisted that no customer would permanently lose money as a result.

NatWest branches opened early on Friday as a glitch continued to affect banking systems.Image credit: NatWest

Many of the banks' branches stayed open late on Thursday night and, according to a statement on Friday morning, around 1,000 opened at 8am to help frustrated customers .

"Unfortunately we are once again experiencing technical issues with our systems and account balances have not updated properly overnight," the statement read. "This means where money has gone into a customer's account, there may be a delay in it appearing on their balance."

"We can assure our customers that this problem is strictly of a technical nature and we continue to work hard to resolve this," NatWest continued. "We also recognise this is an unacceptable inconvenience for our customers, for which we apologise."

David Meyer is a freelance technology journalist. He fell into journalism when he realised his musical career wouldn't be paying many bills. His early journalistic career was spent in general news, working behind the scenes for BBC radio and on-air as a newsreader for independent stations. David's main focus is on communications, of both...
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